PENSIONS
their pension, the state tops it up with
20p of tax relief, boosting it to £1.
Any employee who pays tax at more
than the basic rate can claim more
tax relief through their annual
self-assessment tax return. In addition
to this, employees:
■ Will receive their workplace pension
on top of the state pension
■ May be able to take all their pension
pot in one lump sum
■ Could be entitled to take 25% of their
pension pot tax-free
STEPS YOU NEED TO TAKE
You must complete and submit
a declaration of compliance
within ﬁve months of your
staging date. If you fail to do this
in time, you may face a ﬁne.
It is also a legal requirement to
put certain staﬀ back into a pension
scheme every three years. You must
assess staﬀ who have opted out and
those who have stayed in your pension
scheme but have chosen to reduce the
level of pension contributions to below
the minimum level.
Even if you have no staﬀ who
require re-enrolment, you will still
need to complete a new declaration of
compliance to tell the regulator how
you have met your duties.
Your re-enrolment date is chosen by
you but must fall within three months
either side of the third anniversary of
your staging date. The date you choose
will apply to all your staﬀ. You can't
use diﬀerent dates for diﬀerent staﬀ
members or departments.
NEW EMPLOYEES
If you've employed staﬀ for the ﬁrst
time since 1 October 2017, your legal
duties for auto-enrolment began on
the day your ﬁrst member of staﬀ
started work. If you've employed
someone since 2 April 2017, the
date your automatic enrolment
duties start will depend on
whether you set up your PAYE
scheme with HMRC before or
after your staﬀ started working for
you, and whether you ﬁrst paid staﬀ
before or after 1 July 2017.
You should check how these
duties apply to your business at
thepensionsregulator.gov.uk, but
don't leave it too late - the latest
possible date your obligations will
start is 1 February 2018.
If you want to start your duties
from the date you employed your ﬁrst
member of staﬀ, you can contact the
regulator to arrange this.
ONGOING DUTIES
Whether or not you had staﬀ to put
into a pension scheme, all employers
have ongoing duties for automatic
enrolment. Every time you pay your
staﬀ - including new starters - you
must monitor their age and earnings
to see if they need to be put into a
pension scheme and how much you
need to pay in. You will also need to
Auto-enrolment
applies even if
you employ only
one person
manage requests to join or leave your
pension scheme.
You must keep records of how you've
met your legal duties, including:
■ Names and addresses of those
you've put into a pension scheme
■ Records that show when money
was paid into the pension scheme
■ Any requests to join or leave your
pension scheme
■ Your pension scheme reference or
registry number
You must keep these records for six
years, except for requests to leave the
pension scheme which must be kept
for four years.
Every three years you'll need to put
staﬀ back into your scheme if they've
left it and if they meet the criteria to
be put into a pension scheme. This is
known as re-enrolment. The Pensions
Regulator will write to you in advance
of your date to explain more.
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